


Contact

by captainamergirl



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Family, Original Character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: Elizabeth Grey-Sheperd, or just Lizzie as she was known to her friends and family, was long past playing with dolls and well into what Derek called “The Temperamental Training Bra Years” (in which she bemoaned her lack of breasts constantly) by the time her parents finally decided to tell her the truth about how they - and she - came to be.
A Meredith/Derek one shot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Lizzie was created long before Meredith & Derek started having canon kids. I hope you enjoy this.

**Contact**   
  
Elizabeth Grey-Sheperd, or just Lizzie as she was known to her friends and family, was long past playing with dolls and well into what Derek called “The Temperamental Training Bra Years” (in which she bemoaned her lack of breasts constantly) by the time her parents finally decided to tell her the truth about how they - and she - came to be.   
  
Derek had wanted to tell Lizzie all along but it was Meredith who was the hesitant one. She was worried about two things in particular: 1) If Lizzie learned the truth, would she grow up thinking breaking up marriages and being a card-carrying member of the Dirty Mistresses Club was normal? Or even worse - romantic? That it would end happily the way Meredith and Derek’s relationship had - with marriage and a child too boot? Or scenario 2) Would Lizzie think her mother was some kind of home wrecking slut?   
  
That scenario was almost worse to Meredith than the first.   
  
Still, Lizzie kept pressing them for details of their courtship. All Meredith had allowed Derek to say at this point was that they worked together at the hospital as intern and full-fledged doctor and wasn’t that taboo enough? But Lizzie was an inquisitive and intelligent fourteen-year-old girl like both of her parents and knew there was more to the love story of her parents.  
  
The night before they decided to tell her the truth, Meredith could be found pacing her and Derek’s bedroom as he watched over the rim of his newspaper. “I really don’t think we should tell her, Derek. I really don’t.”  
  
“Mer, she already knows about the birds and the bees. Hell, she was the only five-year-old on the block who knew the word ‘vagina’. The Carpool Brigade actually stopped inviting you to their PTA meetings because of that, remember?”  
  
Meredith flashed him a scalding look. “Don’t remind me.”  
  
“I am just trying to point out that it’s not that big of a deal.”  
  
“It is a big deal. I want to be a good mother, Derek. I want her to respect me. I want her to be -”  
  
“Perfect?” Derek suggested.  
  
“No, not perfect. I want her to think of us that way though dammit!”  
  
“Well she knows better than that,” Derek said with a chuckle. In response to his impertinence, Meredith grabbed a pillow off the bed and chucked it at him. He ducked and it sailed over his head, landing noiselessly on the hardwood floor. He just laughed harder.  
  
“Derek,” she huffed. “Please act like a grownup for once. This is important to me. It should be to you too. I’m her mother. I’m supposed to be a beacon of faith, hope, charity -”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, you’re supposed to be a girl scout, I get it.”  
  
Meredith glared at him again. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously, Derek? Don’t you want our daughter to continue to look up to us?”  
  
“She always will, Mer.” He sat up and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the edge of the bed where he knelt before her and kissed either of her soft cheeks. “She will look up to us because as screwed up and crazy and dysfunctional as we are, she’s used to it.”   
  
He laughed a little and then sobered when Meredith glared at him again. “And, most importantly, we will own up to our past and our shortcomings but we can’t change what we did and you know what? I don’t even want to.”  
  
Derek ran a hand through his wife’s long, loose hair and kissed her. “Now are you coming to bed?”  
  
Meredith nodded. “Yeah but I know I won’t sleep a wink.”  
  
“Good. I was hoping you would say that,” Derek said with a twinkle in those gorgeous eyes of his that had earned him the nickname “Dr. McDreamy” so long ago.   
  
Meredith finally smiled and clutched his hand. “What do you have in mind, Doc?”  
  
“Well there’s an old movie marathon on TCM tonight and I thought we could watch it,” Derek said with a laugh.   
  
Meredith grabbed another pillow off the bed and chucked it at him. Once again, he ducked and it sailed over his pretty head.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Lizzie was sitting at the island in the kitchen munching on a bowl of Cornpops when Meredith and Derek walked into the room, holding hands and looking rumpled and sleep deprived.  
  
“Hey, Baby Bug,” Derek said, walking over and smooching Lizzie on the cheek. Meredith followed suit.   
  
Lizzie looked at them suspiciously. “Okay what are you two on?”  
  
“We’re just full of love for you this morning,” Meredith answered with a smile.  
  
“But then we are every morning,” Derek said as he started up the espresso machine.   
  
“You’re in good moods for so early that’s all. Do you have the day off or something?”  
  
“Actually we do,” Meredith said, lightly flicking Lizzie’s hair that exactly matched her own shade of mousy brown. “And so do you.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard your Mom. You get to play hooky from school today.”  
  
“Seriously?” Lizzie asked in wide eyed amazement.  
  
“Yes we need to have an important talk with you.”  
  
“Ohmigod!” Lizzie cried. “You’re not getting a divorce are you?”  
  
“No, no, nothing like that,” Derek rushed to assure his daughter.   
  
“Then why are you letting me stay home to have a ‘talk’? You’re not usually so cool.”  
  
“I resent that,” Meredith said playfully.  
  
Derek nodded. “As do I. We’re cool … Hip, happening …”  
  
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “This isn’t going to be a sex talk is it? Because I know everything I need to know already.” Before her parents could speak, she held up a hand. “No I’m not having sex okay? But you guys are doctors. What you haven’t told me already, I read about in your medical journals.”  
  
Derek laughed out loud. “Mer, would you agree that our daughter is a tad bit precocious?”  
  
Meredith nodded. “A little too much maybe.”  
  
Lizzie groaned. “Can you two just spit out whatever it is you want to say already? If you’re not getting a divorce or giving me the sex talk, I can’t help but admit I’m intrigued.”  
  
Meredith nodded. “Okay let’s go into the living room.”  
  
Derek followed his girls into the living room and he and Meredith sat on the sofa on either side of their daughter, each taking one of her hands. “Now you’re just creeping me out,” Lizzie moaned.  
  
“Sorry, Lizzie, this is just serious stuff.” Meredith said. “We’re going to tell you the story of us. How we really met, how we really fell in love.”  
  
“Okay …”  
  
“Well we really did work together at the hospital - well, your father was my superior and I was just a lowly -”  
  
“Mer, rambling?” Derek said pointedly offering her an encouraging smile. The smile that still after all these years brought a flush to her cheeks and made her heart race and her toes tingle.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Meredith said, turning back to face Lizzie. “Some of what you hear today might be shocking or even upsetting to you but just remember -”  
  
“Mom, you’re still rambling,” Lizzie said.  
  
“Right. Okay … Lizzie, well, I’ll just jump right in then. Your father and I didn’t meet under the most ideal circumstances to say the least. We didn’t really have a fairytale beginning at all - not even close. Yet when I looked in your dad’s eyes I saw my forever. I saw everything that I wanted that I was way too scared to ask for and way too self-doubting to think I would ever have. We didn’t start under ideal circumstances like I said. We started out as strangers. Well I suppose all people -”  
  
“Mom, rambling?”  
  
“Sorry. This is harder than I thought it would be.”  
  
“Lizzie, what’s your mom is trying to say is that we didn’t start out ideally. I was -” He looked at Meredith - “you’re right this is harder than I thought.”  
  
“Is someone actually going to start making some sense here?” Lizzie asked a little impatiently.  
  
“Sorry,” Meredith said again. “You do remember that your dad was married before we married right?”  
  
“Yeah …”  
  
“Well when you dad and I met, he still was.” She bit her lip. “Married, I mean.”  
  
“You mean you had an affair,” Lizzie stated simply.  
  
“Yes,” her parents both said.  
  
Derek sighed. “The truth is, Baby Bug, that your mom was in the dark about that for a long time which was my fault. I was planning to get a divorce from Addison for reasons that I won’t go into because they aren’t important now …”  
  
“Yes we’re not trying to absolve ourselves,” Meredith said.  
  
Derek continued on. “I stupidly let your mother believe that I was free and clear and single. I really did believe that things were over with Addison and I really loved your mother already. I think the first night we -”  
  
“Had sex,” Lizzie filled in.  
  
“Yeah …”  
  
“When that happened, we didn’t even really know each other,” Meredith said. “Actually to be totally honest, we knew nothing about each other. But we did have this undeniable connection. Our first four years of knowing each other, we were off, on, and everywhere in between. I’m not even going to lie to you. We had more … encounters, if you will, after I knew about Addison and your dad’s marriage. We probably broke her heart - no, we know we did - and we didn’t feel good about it at all. But things I guess you could say … they sort of worked out.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Lizzie asked.  
  
“Well, Addison and I divorced,” Derek said. “And later she married a really cool guy named Tim when she moved to California. Addison and I really did try our best to make it work but there were a lot of complications. Your mom and I danced around each other a long time and we really felt badly for everything we did but we did do one thing right for sure …”  
  
“Me?” Lizzie asked with a smile.  
  
“You know it,” Meredith said, chucking her daughter’s slender arm.  
  
“The bottom line, Baby Bug, is that we are sorry for hurting the people we did and we’d never try to absolve ourselves of our responsibilities but forgiveness is a powerful thing and Addison said - in her words - that we had ’earned’ it.”  
  
Meredith nodded, feeling tears in her eyes. “We wish we could tell you we had this perfect, fairytale romance out of a storybook but we didn’t. We had to work hard - really, really hard - to come to this place where we are so committed to each other and to you. Our wedding though - that was perfect.”  
  
“Except for when your uncle George tripped over his own two feet and landed face first in the cake of course,” Derek put in with a laugh.  
  
Meredith smiled. “Yep … But basically, Lizzie, what we’re saying is that we have had one crazy, wild, messed up, topsy-turvy, emotional, but ultimately incredibly satisfying life. We mean that. We wish we could say we wanted to change the past but the truth is, we don’t. Everything we did made us who we are - your crazy, obnoxious, embarrassing parental units. Our life has been richer and poorer and more complicated than anyone can imagine, but its all ours.”  
  
Meredith and Derek stared at Lizzie who was sitting there quietly crossing her arms. “Do you hate us?” Meredith asked, almost timidly. “What are you thinking? Are you ashamed or-”  
  
“I’m thinking it’s about time you told me! I mean, I already knew most of it but -”  
  
“Wait! Hold it! You already knew?” Derek asked. Meredith just stared at her daughter.  
  
“How?” she finally asked Lizzie.  
  
“Lexie,” the girl answered simply.  
  
Meredith groaned. “I knew I didn’t like her for a reason …”  
  
“Don’t be mad, mom and dad. I assumed you’d never tell me so I forced Aunt Lexie too tell last Christmas. She told me all that she knew.”  
  
“Why didn’t you clue us in that you knew?” Meredith asked.  
  
“Because I was waiting to hear your side of the story. I was waiting to hear how I came to be from you two … You’re not mad, are you?”  
  
“No, not at all,” her parents answered in unison.  
  
“We’re just glad everything’s out in the open now,” Derek said. “Worrying how you were going to react was giving your mother gray hair.”  
  
“Hey!” Meredith snapped.  
  
Derek dimpled charmingly. “Sorry. I had to say that. It was just too easy.”  
  
Meredith just sighed and turned back to Lizzie. “So you’re not mad at us either? Or just ashamed of us?”  
  
“No way,” Lizzie insisted. “I mean I would do things a lot different myself but-”  
  
“You hear that, dear?” Derek piped in. “Our daughter is well-adjusted!”  
  
Meredith and Lizzie laughed. “I will do things different I’m sure, but you two found love and I’m here because of that so I can’t really complain,” Lizzie said.  
  
“You’re sure you’re our daughter, Lizzie?” Derek asked. “You’re way too level-headed.”  
  
Lizzie and Meredith didn’t answer. They just looked at each other and nodded in silent agreement.   
  
Then they laughed as they proceeded to launch a barrage of pillows at Derek - all of which made contact this time.  
  
 **FIN**


End file.
